CA struggles under load #94

For the umpteenth time (as long time CA readers will know) the blog is under heavy assault from people whose only wish is to read the latest from Steve McIntyre unfiltered.

As a consequence, the MySQL db has caused lots of timeouts as the number of readers hits the maximum number of connections (which were probably the defaults) and the maximum numbers of lots of other parameters.

Mr Pete and Anthony have both been on the case and have added more hamsters onto the treadmill to keep CA running. They do ask for your patience – if CA appears to be down, give it 30 minutes and then try again – they are working on this issue.

Being that this blog is sometimes about climate, you may want to place it in the “cloud”. Seriously – seriously consider moving this to EC2 with your mysql db on EBS. Easy to do if you have not already done so!🙂

Sirs,
On the evidence of your graph I’ve just hit the tip jar to keep you on the air. I’ve no tv licence and your recent mystery serial has given me the best entertainment of the year – even surpassing last year’s contribution from “Knowles et al”. If, on subsequent analysis, the graphic proves to be unsound/misleading/incorrectly derived/statistically insignificant/based on corrupt data/an artwork, or whatever, then ….

The graph is obviously a Mannian ploy, probably a mole here at CA. Extreme filtering, no error bars: Butterworth filter, most likely. After some time at this blog I can spot ’em in an instant. Country-of-origin: USA. Able to narrow that down to Sheep Mountain, CA.

Being a long time lurker here I just wanted to thank everyone for their efforts with keeping the blog up to the task and can report that there have been no problems here in Northern, NV! Of course I’ve been laughing so long and so hard in between posts that I’ve probably been hitting the server just at the right time when I finally do refresh. The last couple of days have been truly entertaining!

I came upon this site some time ago and my wife and I were able to contribute to Anthony’s efforts at his Surfacestations.org project while on vacation a year or more ago. What an education!

As a layman, this site gives us faith that over time and through the work of you people and your contributors the science will at least be understood (I dare not say settled as at the very least we’ve all learned that!) and most of all it will be right. And I must confess that if things keep going for the next couple of days I do look forward to the return of “THE MOSH PIT!” Love your stuff Steve Mosher… keep it comin!

Re: Don.W (#22), Here, Here with what you’ve said Don. I too found Ca last year after I decided to go on Temporary Retirement. So I’ve gotten into this AGW thing and this post even though over my Head ALWAYS gives me hope! Thanks to all of those who contribute and those who watch from the Sidelines. Steve, I wish there were more like you out there in “Just doing Your Best”! I pray for you from other Grandpa to you that your Granddaughter gets well. For the “Holy Spirit” IS with you!

I just dropped a hundred bucks into the tip jar. I know it’s not the same as a cool quarter mil from a certain catchup heiress, but we all have to make the best we can of these uncertain times. Steve, you’re the right man at the right time. History is on your side, so please don’t stop.

I’m one of those lurkers who are driving the readership up. Thanks for all your work. I have learned a lot reading your site as well as Real Climate. Though the difference in tone, objectivity, and seeking for veriable fact instead of trying to support previously held beliefs makes me prefer Climate Audit. I just trust you guys more.

When I read Real Climate I am reminded of Richard Feynman’s statement that a scientest has the duty to try to disproove his/her own theory. By that definition they are not scientists.

Gavin et al are obviously very smart people but they verifiy my own working definition of intelligence which is: A measure of a persons ability to rationalize their own prejudices.

In any case, thanks for the education.

ps. I have just made my drop into the tip jar to help you stay on the web. All you other lurkers….

Its nice to see at least one field of science and University that is Mann enough to enforce their professional conduct standards. It is also interesting to note that the Journal involved is playing the typical game of ignoring the problem.

I was especially impressed with this quote:”When researchers draw important conclusions and make public statements and arguments based on survey research, then subsequently refuse to answer even basic questions about how their research was conducted, this violates the fundamental standards of science, seriously undermines open public debate on critical issues, and undermines the credibility of all survey and public opinion research.”

With a few minor changes we get what (I believe) Steve has been saying all along: “When researchers draw important conclusions and make public statements and arguments based on statistical analysis, then subsequently refuse to answer even basic questions about how their analysis was conducted, this violates the fundamental standards of science, seriously undermines open public debate on critical issues, and undermines the credibility of all statistical and Climate Science research.”

Steve: Thank you for helping us get to the truth. Your service is invaluable, but worth at least the $20 I just put in the tip jar.
I bailed out of the so-called environmental movement years ago due to the rash politicization of the issues. It just keeps getting worse, so we need to redouble our efforts to promote good science as the foundation for good policy.

The problem wasn’t so much the caching, but the sheer numbers of connections to the MySQL database which caused the timeout. I’m glad to say that between them, Mr Pete and Anthony have certainly improved the performance under load.

I added a tip as well. $20 isn’t a huge amount, but if we all do it it’ll add up. Just wish I could afford more, the work Steve is doing here will be quoted quite a way into the future, I believe.

For me, this whole saga, while not scientifically all that relevant (but politically very relevant), is showing two things:
1. the whole argument of ‘only peer-reviewed papers are accurate/admissible’ is weak, or at least badly flawed; and
2. many of the the scientific people behind AGW are being shown up to be activists – they are clearly not just dispassionate scientists only interested in the truth. That’s not to say some of them aren’t still good scientists – rather they spend a little too much time pushing an agenda.

My mother used to say that as a way of enumerating my serial misdemeanors. I used to think that umpteen = umpteen + 1 since the number umpteen stayed the same with each new misdemeanor. I now know that this property is claimed by a much larger number than my mother had in mind. Returning to this problem after many years I wonder if it is the solution to the equation

umpteen =rounddown(umpteen + M)

where M is a number just a little bit less than 1 for each new misdemeanor. That (M less than 1) as well as the use of rounddown rather than (say) roundup maybe shows a generosity that I missed at the time.

But does someone else have a better definition of umpteen?

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